Turn A SEED
by shoootme
Summary: If in Turn A Gundam the Willgem was replaced by the archangel and Lacus Clyne replaced Dianna princess of the lunar colony’s how will the world turn out?
1. Chapter 1 The awakening

**Turn-A Seed**

If in Turn-A Gundam the Willgem was replaced by the Archangel and Lacus Clyne replaced Dianna princess of the lunar colonies, how will the world turn out?

Disclaimer- I do not own any rights to Gundam seed or Turn-A Gundam. All characters, Gundams, suits and ships from these series are not of my own creation. This is a fan made story and I only wish I could make money out of this but I don't, so now I need to find a real job.

A/N rewritten (12/06/2009) original copy is still saved on my hdd and available on request.

0o0o0o0oo0o0o0o0o

**Prologue**

**C.E 78 June Captain's quarters Eternal**

"Come in." ordered Lacus as she put down another report on The PLANTs demise.

As the young ensign entered she asked "What is the current status of the home fleet?"

"Out of the entire fleet left to defend The PLANTs there are less than 20 mobile suits still operational and including the Kusanagi the fleet has 5 ships that are seaworthy, but all have sustained damage. The Kusanagi has sustained damage to its engines and has requested permission to return to earth to retrieve a new engine block, after which it will rejoin the fight with the lunar fleet. The rest of the fleet will rendezvous with us in 26 hours."

"Very well, have archangel escort her in and send commander Kira and admiral Athrun to the archangel as well."

"But sir, shouldn't we keep them with the 2nd fleet for the upcoming battle?"

"The reason I am sending them to earth is because with the destruction of the PLANTs and the rest of the colonies there is little left to defend in space other than the moon. However down on earth there are still a large number of people whom we must protect."

"Understood sir, I will relay these orders at once." The ensign said as he stood to attention.

"Good, dismissed,"

After he left the room Lacus walked over to the window. Looking out, she whispered "Kira please be safe against the moon butterfly,"

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

**Phase-1 the awakening **

**About 2345 years later **

**Port side corridor of an unknown craft**

Loran was lost; Kihel had run off as soon as she had seen the ship's name on the hatch. What was so special about archangel anyway? The only archangel he knew was in a very old book that he had read after his arrival on earth, but in that an archangel was a class of angel not a ship. Unfortunately the name of the massive vessel didn't help the fact that he had no idea where he was, and more importantly, where Kihel had ran off to. Loran doubted that she would come to any harm, the ship was remarkably intact. The thing that worried him was the crew; they were still here or at least there were black objects that were human-shaped. Loran was not normally a superstitious person, but with so many corpses around it was hard not to be.

Following the trail of open blast-proof doors and disturbed patches of black material that covered every surface he reached an open elevator with the lights on. Stepping inside, he noticed that the button panel had been cleaned and appeared to be working; the problem was all the buttons had been cleaned, so there was no clue to where the last user had gone. Thinking for a moment, he decided that the place that any logical person would go on a ship like this was the bridge. He pressed a button marked bridge making the lift ascend.

When the door opened to the bridge Loran screamed. In front of him was one of the black husks with a look of sheer terror, on what had to have been a face at one point. Cautiously moving passed him, he found that he was now standing on the ship's bridge. The bridge was made up of three levels; the top had the entrance and two stations, one vacant with the operator inches from the door. The middle level had what looked like the captain's chair, complete with captain, and several stations at the front which were obviously helm controls. The bottom level had 4 stations in it with a chair in the middle; Loran had no idea what it was for. The bridge had 12 other people on it, none of them her. Sighing he sat down on the stairs next to where the captain still sat, "Kihel where did you go?" He wondered aloud.

Looking at the captain he asked "I don't suppose you have seen a girl with pink hair in her early 20's?"

There was no response from the person sitting next to him, just her panicked expression with her eyes closed and her hand up in a meagre defence, frozen in time.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

**Archangel starboard Catapult **

Kira was suffering the biggest hangover he had ever had and Lacus was not helping. She kept screaming his name over and over. Slowly Kira opened his eyes which were covered in something that flaked off. When he did get them open, all he could see was black. Moving he realised that he was wearing his normal suit. That must have been a good night out he thought as he removed the helmet which was also covered in the same strange material that was on his face. Looking around he realised that he was in freedom's cockpit, and from what he could see from the dim light everything was covered in a black material, Correction; that must have been one hell of a good night out. That's when he noticed the lock of pink hair peeking over the edge of the hatch. Wiping the rest of the black material off his face, he climbed up to see what his fiancée wanted. She was crying, Lacus never cried in front of people. She was the one who normally held him when the past got too much for him. He must have done something really bad last night to get her like this.

"I am sorry Lacus" Kira said as he put his arms round her.

Lacus stiffened and slowly looked up, when her eyes met his they were full of tears but that was not what had Kira's breath caught in his throat. Her eyes were haunted, confused and full of fear and pain but when she met his gaze her whole face turned completely white. Something was definitely very wrong, in the years he had known her she had never been like this.

"K-K-Kira?" she stammered with wide Cerulean eyes staring at him as if she was having trouble believing what she was seeing.

"Yes; are you alright?" he said as he tried to remember the night before… no we were not out drinking last night we were in battle stations but against what… The Blue Cosmos, They had attacked various points across the earth and the colonies trying to wipe out all Coordinators and destroy all technologies that had created them. A mad plan carried out by mad people. There were a lot of terrorist attacks throughout the world, major cities and mass drivers as well as attacks on major ZAFT installations around the globe. In space things were worse. The 1st 2nd and 3rd OMNI Enforcer's space fleets went berserk and started attacking colonies at random. This was bad enough but then when we thought it couldn't get any worse the Turn A and X appeared as well as the discovery that the fleets had nukes. The Turn A was not particularly dangerous as far as mobile suits go, but the wings of light which acted as its thrusters were redesigned to spread nano machines and destroy anything they touched. Given a big enough power source they could spread throughout the world and kill everything. Turn X was much the same except that it was modular like Impulse. The only way to stop it was to hit the pilot, the one thing Kira never wanted to do again, but in this case there was no choice.

With the 3rd fleet and Turn X attacking and destroying The PLANTs archangel was sent down to earth to stop Turn A from wiping it out. Just as we were about to launch we got hit by a swarm of nano machines. Then it clicked the black stuff that was all over him and the ship was the nano machines. No wonder Lacus was looking at him like that, as if he should be dead… DEAD! "Athrun!" He was in justice on the port catapult and Cagalli was right behind him in the hangar. Grabbing Lacus by the arm he started firing off questions in quick succession "what happened to earth? The lunar colony, the fleet, Orb, is Athrun ok? What about Cagalli?"

"Kira it really is you" Lacus said, tears of joy streaming down her face.

"Yes it's me. What's happened?"

"We lost," that's all she got out before diving in to Kira's shoulder.

"We lost!" Kira was stunned by this for a minute but if so then … It didn't bear thinking about how many would have died.

0o0o0o0o0o

**Archangel hanger deck **

Cagalli awoke to much of the same thoughts as Kira, going as far as to say "I am never going drinking with the two of you again," but Athrun realised what had happened instantly. He attempted to blow the catapult's doors off and launch to attack the Turn A on the presumption that it was still where they had picked it up on radar.

Athrun had been abnormally irritable since the loss of the PLANT's even Kira could not help snap him out of it.

"So what the hell happened?" asked Athrun. He instantly regretted it as he saw Lacus put on that mask, the mask she used to hide her feelings which meant one thing Athrun was not going to like what she was going to say. Athrun had served under a madman that had used a real mask to hide his insanity, and hated seeing any form of mask because it hid the feelings of the person under it, making their intentions unknown to him. Many people had noticed that Athrun was a terrible poker player because of this.

"We regrouped the surviving ships at the moon and were successful in defeating The Blue Cosmos," said Lacus in her official tone.

"And earth?" asked Cagalli hesitantly.

"We lost contact about 2 hours after your last report," replied Lacus, again in her official tone as if she were addressing the council.

"Ho-how many did we lose?" stammered Cagalli, not able to hide her emotions as well as Lacus.

"We don't know, possibly about 99% of the Earth's population. We sent a team to the surface to look for survivors less than a week after the attack, but they never returned." Her official tone wavered as she replied.

"WHAT A WEEK! How long have we been out?" asked Athrun. Again he regretted opening his mouth as Lacus's mask fell, along with the tears that she had been holding back.

Kira instantly went to comfort her.

0o0o0o0o0o0o

**Archangel's bridge**

Murrue Ramius woke with a splitting headache. It was dark; she didn't need to open her eyes to see that. Knowing Mu, it was a matter of time before he opened the blinds and she would be forced to wake up properly.

_Thump!_

That was him getting out of bed and by the sounds of it he had done it as gracefully as her. Knowing she only had seconds more of blissful sleep she curled up and try to find the covers.

Ten seconds past; there wasn't light shining in her face and Mu was not teasing her for being such a sleepy head or for even falling out of bed. He had waited long enough for her to start thinking of her own remarks, and that was a mistake. She had played this game with Mu for years, and they both knew that the only way for Mu to win was to strike fast before her mind woke up enough by 'natural means' to counter him.

A light came on but it was not Mu's voice she heard and WHAT THE HELL WAS ATHRUN DOING IN HER ROOM! This had her awake faster than Mu's teasing would ever manage, but this was not her room. Instead she was on Archangel's poorly lit bridge, and the only two other people visible were Athrun and some white haired kid sitting in a growing pool of something she would rather not know about. That's when it clicked.

Rubbing her head, she got off of the ground with some help from Athrun "What happened? What's the status of the ship?" she asked as her senses returned.

"We are down and out Captain; the ship got hit pretty hard by the nano machines and we are buried under half a mountain. The crew is in suspended animation but I don't know how many we lost."

"Suspended animation? How long were we out?"

Athrun's face dropped "2000 years."

"WHAT!" she exclaimed as her knees gave out, luckily for her Athrun was able to stop her from hitting the deck hard. If anyone else had told this to her she would have thought it was a prank or some sort of sick joke by HQ but Athrun never got involved in that. She didn't know how long she had been sitting there. Time just seemed to stop. When she did come back to her senses Athrun was shaking her and the white haired boy was gone.

"Come on Captain, we need to get off the ship," Athrun said dragging her up and around Kuzzey's frozen form towards the elevator.

"What about the others?" she said as Athrun and she got into the lift.

"We will come back for them; right now we need to get set up outside before we suffocate in here," This got a questioning glance from Murrue.

Without looking at her he said "A lot of the critical systems are down, including life support, the oxygen probably wouldn't last long with everyone breathing."

They travelled in silence down the elevator to the living quarter deck lit only by emergency glow sticks, then headed aft along with the rest of the surviving crew, several of them working to get tents and other supplies out of the ship. The medical teams were getting those who were stationed at this part of the ship on their feet. After a short walk they found a ladder that went into the depths of the engine room, Murrue realised where they were headed now. There was a hatch at ground level in the engine room used by maintenance personnel to access the lower portions of the engines. It was a maze down there. Most of the engine room crew couldn't find it half the time. That kid on the bridge must have been wandering around down there for hours before finding her.

Thinking about that kid, she didn't even see him leave the bridge. Was he even there in the first place? The nano machines could be screwing with her head; it still ached a bit. Hell, this whole thing was just too fantastic to be true, that had to be it. This was all just a dream made by the nano machines as they tore her brain apart molecule by molecule. Either that or some one spiked her coffee.

She was snapped out of her thoughts by Athrun talking, "Sorry I missed that."

"Lacus is the one who found me, Kira and Cagalli, but she is under cover trying to get a better feel for the political situation or something equally silly. All the people with her know her as Kihel, a local girl from a rich family in the area. Apparently she is her complete look alike. Also, that kid on the bridge found that fucking suit and has been playing around with it for a couple of months. It's only a matter of time before he hits the big red button and ends the world again." Repeated Athrun the last sentence laced with venom.

"Where is he now?" asked Murrue ducking through a blast door.

"I sent him and his suit out to find water and bring it back, doc said that dehydration is going to be a big issue with the symptoms he is seeing." Athrun said as he started to descend the last ladder down to the maintenance hatch.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**River bed outside archangel **

Lacus's hart skipped a beat when she saw Murrue emerge from the cave, her friends were alive they were all alive, for the first time since she arrived on earth she felt like everything was ok once again. Back to the times were Athrun, Cagalli and Kira would play football with the kids on the beach at the orphanage after dinner whilst her, Kira's parents and Reverend Malchio watched from the porch. That thought ended her good mood; those were three people that would not be found alive and well. Malchio had been on one of the colonies that had gone down during the fleet's attacks; his body was later recovered from a lifeboat and given a space burial. Kira's parents had been in Orb running the orphanage, she doubted very much that they or the kids had survived the initial nano machine attack and after 2000 years they were definitely not still alive. The last thought almost had tears back in her eyes. for a time those kids had been her life, she had got up before don every day to make breakfast then at night she had tucked them in , if one had a nightmare or could not sleep she would let them sleep in her bed as if they were her own child. She had to stop herself from crying and put on a smile knowing that Kira would ask what was wrong, and then she would have to tell him. At the moment Lacus doubted that Kira had thought about them yet but when he did she knew she needed to be there, it would be Flay all over again.

A shout from Cagalli forced her to return to reality.

"SIR! SIR!" yelled Cagalli "DO I LOOK LIKE A FUCKING GUY TO YOU?"

Lacus could not help but giggle at Will's mistake, far to many people have made the same mistake over the years including Cagalli's own "little brother."

"Lacus?" asked said brother.

"Yes Kira," she replied her smile coming easier than it had a moment earlier.

"Are those the two people that were digging here and found us?" Kira pointed at Will and Teteth.

"yes the women's name is Teteth and the man's is Will," she replied watching them as they continued to be shouted at by Cagalli about Will's little mistake before Murrue came over and convinced Cagalli to drop it. Defeated, she came over to help Kira and her put up some tents.

"Who's that?" Kira asked pointing over to Sid who had just arrived.

"his name is Sid, he's an archaeologist that's been uncovering artefacts from what they call 'the black history' like Koopans for the militia and other military hardware," she said trying to get a poll to go through a stupid hole in the tent.

"Koopan?" asked Kira and Cagalli completely lost as to what she meant.

"Sorry I meant Capules," Lacus had to reframe from kicking her self the militia had no knowledge of what they were uncovering and so had re-named there mobile suits.

"Anything that's really big and scary that we should know about," Cagalli mocked as she helped her get the poll in with a grin on her face.

The Capules had been a ZAFT Design put into mass production before proper testing was done like many of its predecessors. It was hoped that it would replenish the ZAFT suits lost during the second war at a fraction of the cost, however during deployment they were found to have a tendency to roll over.

Cagalli had ones said during a red flag exercise that involved a squadron of Capules taking a hill that it looked like a game of tenpin bowling when the lead suit had been hit by a paint ball shell from an Astray. After this they were withdrawn from service and sold off to various nations. Cagalli had never let her live it down.

"No, luckily he has not found some of the EA horrors that were lost yet," she shuddered at the thought of what was possibly still down there. Although all countries had signed a treaty to stop the production of phase shift armour equipped mobile suits and nuclear weapons the Atlantic federation had retained some of its destroyer class 'Gundams', and judging by the way the rogue fleets had been throwing nukes around there was possibly more stored on earth.

"What about that suit?" asked Cagalli.

"The locals were using it as part of a coming of age ceremony, Loran found it after we started dropping in."

"What's the kid like?" asked Kira.

"He is kind and is always looking out for me and Kihel sister Sochie. He reminds me a lot of you Kira when you were younger."

"So what is he doing piloting that suit?" asked Cagalli.

"He fell into it during ZAFTs attack."

"Sounds familiar," Kira replied shooting Murrue and Athrun both dirty looks.

This got a giggled from Lacus and Cagalli "kind of." Lacus said before returning to feeding the tent poll throw the canvas. "But seriously he was one of the moons advanced Scouts so it's not like he didn't know we were coming or what might happen if things went bad."

"Did you meet him before you left?"

"Yes I had to send off all the advanced scouts but I didn't really know him until I arrived." Lacus giggled and blushed at the memory of meeting him on earth "you should have seen it the militia wanted us to think that he was a girl for some reason but I knew that he was a boy instantly but I had to go the hole party I was at without saying a word about it, he even asked my bodyguard to dance with him." She said before a frown appeared on her face and she turned back to working on the tent.

If she had eyes on the back of her head she would have seen Kira and Cagalli exchange worried looks "eh Lacus did something happen that night?" asked Kira

"Yes."

The twins exchanged more worried looks.

"What happ-," Cagalli tried to ask but she was cut off by Lacus.

"They tried to kill me."

"Who?" Kira said with barely contend anger welling beneath the surface.

"Coordinators I don't know who they were working for, they dropped some medicine that is used to treat infertility in 3rd gen in their escape," She said.

"But to have Coordinators you need specialist laboratories and the earth is in the middle of the industrial revolution so how could it have been… Coordinators," Cagalli said with comprehension slowly dawning on her face "ZAFT?"

Lacus could not answer through the tears she was now shedding. She felt Kiras' arms rap around her and she nuzzled into the embrace she had been denied for thousands of years.

"It's ok Lacus we can fix this, ZAFT has targeted you in the past but we were always able to protect you and war is nothing new to us. We can do this," Said Kira trying to comfort her.

"How" Lacus asked not able to meet his eyes "all ZAFT and the militia can see is hate which is breeding hate and no one can see past it."

"Sounds like the first war" said Cagalli from behind her "but we fixed that didn't we and we can do it again."

"Fixed?" Athrun scoffed as he seemed to appear out of nowhere "I don't call this fixed do you?" he snapped before stomping off back towards the ship.

Cagalli looked at the ground "Its PLANTS isn't it?" She asked when he was out of ear shot.

"Yeah he took it badly," Replied Kira.

"I should have done more."

"There was nothing more you could have done."

'He hadn't told them had he?' thought Lacus as she buried her self further in to Kira, the truth was he hadn't told her either but she knew what it was. Meyrin had been forced to tell her because of her position on the eternal. Most people would assume that he was feeling powerless about the loss of PLANTs but for his sake she wished that it was just that. This was not good, Athrun didn't cope well when he felt powerless or betrayed by those he considered to be his friends. During the first war he was shooting to kill Kira because of his allegiance and when she had been called a traitor he had pulled a gun on her. In the second war he yelled at Cagalli and said a lot of things that later ended his relationship with her, now it was a matter of time before he took out his frustrations on them. Cagalli may have been there but it was not her fault, she had not acted rashly on sketchy intelligence and sent most of the ZAFT fleet out to search and destroy an unknown number of enemies. She needed to have a talk to him about this, but not now later when she got used to seeing them all alive and things had calmed down.

She was so involved with her thoughts that she never heard the sounds of battle in the distance but she noticed the way Kira stiffened.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

**O****ne of the meny caves near the river bed about 5 kilometers from the Archangel **

Why did this always happen? All Loran was doing was trying to find those people on the ship some water. He was not trying to fight a war but the ZAFT soldiers had not given him a chance to explained this when he had run into them above the dried up riverbed. Instead of being reasonable the WaDom had fired missiles at him destroying the ground under his feet.

This particular cavern he had fallen into was made up of a large number of tunnels with several naturally forming pillars holding up the roof. These tunnels could fit his white doll with ease however the larger WaDom could not fit, so it had sent down its escorting WaDs to attack him and possibly drive him to the surface.

Loran drew one of his beam sabres and cut away a piece of the cave ceiling to cause a cave-in and hopefully buy him some time to escape. Moments later he realised his mistake.

The ceiling was not as sturdy as it had looked causing it to disintegrate and collapse on top of both him and his pursuers, very much not what he had planned.

Loran was tossed around in his cockpit as the white doll received rock strikes, the WaDs were not as forchant, with there relatively light armour they were quickly taken down by the rocks. However his major problem was not being knocked about as the hole he had made in the surface had of course alerted the WaDom to his current location and the thudding over head confirmed that problem.

A WaDom was twice the size of his machine doll but that was not his main concern. However the large beam cannon mounted in its head was, and since his successes with the white doll, ZAFT had started equipping them with an extra generator to increase the power and rate of fire of the weapon.

One of the pillars collapsed as the WaDom above ground moved towards him. An idea hit Loran as if something had exploded in the back of his mind. Drawing his second beam sabre he cut down several of the columns. It was amazing, now he was able to see every rock falling and the movement of the WaDom more clearly than if it was in broad daylight.

With the weakened structure of the cave it was only a matter of time before the WaDom with its massive bulk fell through the roof. When it did, it found the cave was too small as with its head unit remaining above ground. This was as Loran had planned; he had escaped the labyrinth thought one of many small exits that were doted around and was now top-side running full pace closing the distance between him and the ZAFT suit.

He was about 10 metres away from the WaDom before it noticed him and with a battle cry from its pilot the main cannon hatch opened up in preparation for firing. This was futile as Lorain was now too close for the heavy calibre weapon to be much use being most of it was buried. Jumping up Lorain landed on top of its head before plunging the two beam sabres the White Doll had in its hands into the head unit. A series of small explosions rocked the head piece, followed shortly by a massive eruption as the main cannon that was still charged by the secondary generator cooked off sending Loran and the White Doll tumbling through the air.

It took several minutes for him to regain his senses but once Loran did he cautiously re-entered the cave to confirm that he had got the last of the ZAFT mobile suits. Much to his relief there was a WaDom (minus head piece) shaped hole in the side of the cave and the silhouette of the ZAFT suits running or being carried in the opposite direction of Kihel and that big ship.

Seeing ZAFT retreating Loran slumped against the harnesses. He had never wanted this. Why did he have to hurt people? This was not right. He was just trying to help people.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

**Turn-A mobile suits mentioned **

Turn-A Gundam/the White Doll - a Gundam class suit that is designed to use nano machines to attack with cataclysmic consequences. (Turn-A).

WaDom- a 40 metre tall mobile suit that is armed with 1 heavy beam cannon, 6 missile launchers and anti air machine guns this suit is very heavily armoured and able to withstand all conventional weapons used by the militia. This mobile suit is an anti fortress suit capable of destroying a moon race ship in a single shot and is complete over kill for any opponent that is not piloting a mobile suit of their own. Even in mobile suit combat its size makes it a dangerous opponent although not armed with a beam sabre or any other close combat weapons it can kick and punch its way out of most fights. A WaDom piloted by Poe Aijee was responsible for a large amount of civilian casualties during the beginning of ZAFTS return to earth (Turn-A).

WaD- a small mobile suit that is only 7 metres tall, it is able to carry a variety of infantry support and anti suit weapons. This suit is an idle anti infantry weapon because of its small size and a back bone which separates the main body and legs giving it the ability to peer over cliffs or around corners without exposing the legs to unnecessary danger, however it can also take on normal sized suits such as the suit designated the Borjarnon by the militia (ZAFT ZAKU). (Turn-A).

Koopan/ Capule an amphibious mobile suit seen in Gundam ZZ and used by Neo Zeon, in Turn-A it is the first mobile suit used by the militia and is comparable to the WaD (ZZ, Turn-A).

For more detailed descriptions please look at mach-hq or wiky.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

**A/N**

Finally I got this done, thanks a lot to my mum, dad and family friends who helped me get all the spelling bugs out of my work even though none of them know what a Gundam is. Please read and review I need feed back.

Edit the rework done in this chapter was due to me forgetting some facts as when I was writing this I had not finished the DVD of seed and Turn-A, instead I was using my memory of when seed first aired in Japan and a old copy of Turn-A. However I have watched both recently so hopefully I won't make such an ass of their characterisation again. I also had a wall banger when it came to Athrun name as there were two spellings I used throughout this chapter in the original.

The reason this has taken so long to do is because of university and there dam plots to make me work.

Chapter 2 will be up as soon as I get it spell checked and I get my head around the bad English on this sub title version from china of Turn-A, Example-A "war time out" (real meaning "ceasefire" I think).


	2. Chapter 2 Alive

Chapter 2 alive

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

**July 23****rd**** C.E. 2423 (C.C. 2345 earth calendar****)**

**ORB Naval report **

**3****rd**** fleet **

**LCAM-01XA Archangel**

Ship's damage report

Life support 1% operational efficiency

Details; all filters clogged with nano machines; all fans jammed by nano machines; ventilation ducts covered in nano machines. Climate control circuits damaged; humidity system clogged by nano machines.

Engines; disabled

Details; engines are covered by rocks and are unable to start up; fuel lines into engines and within the engines themselves are clogged by nano machines and expired fuel; lubrication system is presumed to be in a similar state

Helm controls; disabled

Details; control stick is unresponsive, circuit boards are believed to be out of order. Flaps and lifters are covered by rocks and internal workings jammed by nano machines.

Gottfried turrets; disabled

Details; Gottfried port was destroyed on impact with the cave wall resulting in the loss of all crew stationed in that section (bodies not recovered so they are now listed as MIA) and is currently beyond repair with available resources. Gottfried starboard is clogged with nano machines and several key circuit boards are damaged.

Valiant guns; disabled

Details; Valiant port and starboard are enclosed by rocks and are clogged with nano machines. Loaders are jammed with shells still in the system.

Lohengrin; disabled

Details; both Lohengrins are covered by rocks and have sustained significant nano machine infestation.

CIWS weapons; disabled

Details; all ammo belts and barrels are clogged by nano machines; elevation mechanism is jammed along with rotation control. Controls are offline for unknown reasons possibly computer related

Missiles; unknown

Details; sub system unreachable without proper respirator equipment. Munitions bay is currently inaccessible from hangar deck and ship auto loaders are out of action.

Anti-beam depth charges; disabled

Details; launchers are buried and are unable to be accessed at this time.

Main Power; offline

Details; engines are offline preventing main power from being produced. Both nuclear powered Gundams are also unable to be used for this, until an inspection team from the Eternal has verified the stability of the reactors.

Batteries; 10%

Water purification; disabled

Details; Water tank contaminated by nano machines; filters and pipes are infested by nano machines

Hull integrity; one hull breach

Details; with the exception of Gottfried port turret there have been no hull breaches.

Catapults; disabled

Details; a large amount of nano machines have been attracted to both the catapults' magnets and the suits that were on them.

Hangar doors; jammed

Details; hydraulic failure in main hangar deck has disabled all large doors on the hangar deck and on the flight deck. Starboard door is also enclosed by rocks.

Casualties

**MIA 12**

Ensign Orpha Lucas

Master Chief petty officer Zenon Petunia

Seaman first class Eliert Shay

Seaman first class Nevan Urban

Seaman first class Renoato Fabian

Seaman second class Charisma Adrian

Seaman second class Daquan Barry

Seaman third class Dominik Anton

Seaman third class Eseld Olivia

Seaman third class Jeff Dacre

Seaman third class Kirsteen Ashton

Seaman third class Lilian Alana

**KIA 3**

Lieutenant Adrian Edvin

Seaman second class Elwood Teodor

Seaman second class Jasper Rigby

**Wounded 32 **

Broken bones 15

Amputations 2

Heart attacks 1

Seizures 3

Severe diarrhoea 10

Ballistic trauma 1

**Please see attached medical report for further details**

Murrue looked up from the report she had just finished reading for the 5th time. It had been two days since they woke up and they had relocated everyone to tents outside the ship. The life support systems were still down and would continue to be so for some time yet, if the report in her hands was accurate. After dealing with the immediate problems such as food and water (if MREs could be called food), they had turned their attention to working on how to get the ship back to operational status, or at least that was the story the crew got.

The truth about the work was simply a diversion to keep the crew of the Archangel occupied and to stop them from thinking about the current situation until the senior staff could work out what to do. The fact that the phrase "I don't know" was able to kill any subordinate quicker than an enemy bullet, was all too familiar to the captain of the Archangel. Some crew members who had realised how bad the situation was, were now listed as K.I.A with one exception, and she was damned if she was going to lose any more of them. True, just about everyone onboard was exiled from their native home after the first war, but they had made a new home in Orb, friends and even some families. Even knowing that you could be killed, mutilated or lose your memory like Mu, could not prepare you for the loss of those back home. Well at least if she took the report as an accurate summary of the damage, the men had plenty to occupy their time.

This brought Murrue to why she was in the briefing room/tent with all the mobile suit pilots, Heli crews and the complement of marines. Other than doing work on their suits, guns or aircraft, which for most was well beyond their capabilities, they had far too much time on their hands, To fix this the marines' first Lieutenant Daly had come to her with a plan and for it to work she needed to play her part. Pilots never did "grunt work" after all.

Scanning the tent Murrue couldn't help but notice the difference between the emblems each pilot wore. On her left sitting in a chair with his head hung low was Kohaku Hideyoshi. He was wearing the badge for the Susanoo. After the dust had settled at PLANTs he was the only surviving crew member from that ship and was the most inexperienced pilot under her command; technically he was not even a fully fledged pilot and was on the Susanoo with the rest of his class to get his 'space wings' on the "S" variant of the Murasame. During the battle at PLANTs, he scored a kill on an enemy suit and was picked up by the Kusanagi after the loss of his ship.

Next to him was Tarou Takehiko wearing the familiar badge of the Kusanagi, He was a former instructor from Morgonrate, but two months before things went to hell he transferred to the Kusanagi to take the role of flight lead. She suspected that both Tarou and Kohaku knew one another from the way the younger man gravitated towards him when off duty rather than someone else his own age. The only thing she could think of was that 'Sensi' as he was more commonly known, had instructed Kohaku on the Murasame at some point.

Sitting behind him and slightly to the left was Cagalli wearing her normal suit with her family crest on the shoulder where the ship's badge should be. She had started to wear her normal suit like her uniform when she had come aboard from the Kusanagi. She had said something about her not having a military uniform on a diplomatic visit to PLANTs. With what had happened during her visit, no-one was willing to make a big deal out of it, nor did anyone seem to know why she had been visiting the PLANTs in the first place, but asking about it would only bring up painful memories.

Next to Cagalli was her brother Kira who was quietly chatting to Athrun about something she couldn't overhear. She still couldn't adjust to seeing Kira in a white ZAFT uniform nor could she get over how in matters of the Archangel's squadron she was the superior of a full admiral, but Athrun was only wearing the hat to give Cagalli more control over her fleet. During the last battle Kira and Athrun had been on the Eternal and the Orb fleet had been placed under the command of Chairwoman Clyne. People back home (something twisted in her gut) thought that this was wrong and their troops should be commanded by an Orb officer, but all the ships' captains and many of the XOs knew her well enough that it didn't bruise any egos and the public was ignored in favour of military efficiency.

Not wanting to dwell on her gut's screaming she moved her gaze to Mu who was just wakening up from a nap he had been taking. He was supposed to be helping in the briefing in place of her XO, who was in 'the sick bay' but when it had been delayed by the acetate projector going tech, he had decided to just take a nap next to her whilst someone tried to fix it. During the last battle he had managed to bring the Akatsuki back without even a scratch. Mu made the impossible possible again, something she was openly thankful for, but if he tried to get into a hot spring with Teteth again she would not be so grateful.

She must have been scowling because he looked away ashamed.

At the back of the tent was Takumi Michi along with Chief Murdoch trying to make coffee for everyone with a small fire and a kettle. Takumi was one of only two who made it back to the Archangel, although this was probably because he was running AWACS for them; even so he had shot down 3 suits in that mess.

Noboru and Shou were setting up the overhead projector next to the fire. They had convinced Murdoch that they could fix the projector whilst he made coffee for everyone. They were from the Tsukyomi 1st element 2nd flight. During the battle both had made emergency landings on Archangel after the Tsukyomi was sunk. They had done a good job of covering each other during the battle and were the only intact element from Orb's space fleet.

Sitting on the right hand side of the room was half of the platoon of marines from the 10th regiment detached to Archangel along with their Heli crews. She had asked for them when they had been resupplied by the O.S.N.S (Orb surface Naval Ship) Funekajimogamo in case they needed to do any ground operations. Unfortunately all they ended up doing was sitting on their asses and watching as the world ended around them. Besides that it was a good thing she had asked for them as a lot of the marine survival gear worked whilst most of hers didn't.

Out of all the emblems that the pilots wore, there was one missing. The Izumo the first ship of its class, had gone down with all hands and its wing had been annihilated when its detachment had been caught in the blast from a stray nuke.

"It's working now" said Shou as the overhead projector came to life dazzling Murrue as he had pointed it at her rather than the screen. She vaguely wondered how some of the dumbest people she knew could pilot a mobile suit, with of course Kira and co being the main exceptions.

"Thank you Shou" Murrue said as the projector was readjusted and the pilots became focussed on her.

"You are all aware of the situation with the Archangel; however, what you may not realise is we have woken up in the middle of a war between ZAFT and the earth" as if the explosions hadn't given it away. "To be more precise a militia force that belongs to what was once North America but is possibly now a British Empire colony. Both sides in this conflict could consider us a threat or an opportunity to gain a powerful military asset. Therefore, as the captain of this vessel I have issued orders to construct a defensive position around the Archangel, with a ten kilometre military exclusion zone. To facilitate this all crew members who have no technical skill will be placed under the jurisdiction of Lieutenant Daniel Daly who will be co-ordinating the defence," she said, whilst unobtrusively signalling Lieutenant Daly to begin the show

"How long until we can get a mobile suit out?" asked Daly as if he didn't know the answer.

"Two weeks, less if we can get that Gundam to help us." replied Murdoch as he brought a cup of coffee to the front for her, "but we are having problems with the doors. If we hole the hydraulics we could get Infinite Justice out, but we would need that Gundam again to open the door. However this will seal all the other doors on the hangar deck shut until we patch up the leak and figure out what was originally wrong with the rest of the system."

"Isn't he working with the militia?" asked Daly. He knew the answer to this as well being that he had personally investigated for her what the boys' motivations were.

"Yes and no." replied Kira "he generally does whatever he likes and is rarely called in to do any actual fighting."

Kira didn't mention that Loran was the one who normally ended the fighting by attacking ZAFT suit forces or that out of all the suits he had destroyed only one had resulted in the loss of its pilot. How odd did he not know about that and if so why? Was Loran avoiding talking to him because he was technically ZAFT or had Kira been trying to avoid that subject knowing how painful it could be to talk about the killing?

"I have talked to the kid. He doesn't sound like he is a soldier or capable of doing any intentional harm." replied Mu backing up Kira.

"That maybe so, but that Gundam is the Turn A or have you forgotten what that did?" said Athrun.

Murrue remembered that she had not passed on her and Daly's observations to Athrun. That was a minor dereliction of duty and she could be reprimanded for it. That was all Athrun could do to her as there was no one who could take her place right now. She made a mental note to get Athrun to work with her in the same office from now on so she would not screw up like that again. Next time it could cost more than a bad opinion.

"He doesn't know what it's capable of or he would have abandoned it long ago" replied Kira.

"The admiral has a point. It's not like we can just let the thing that killed the world walk about like nothing has happened," said Mu.

"Ok, suggestions?" asked Ramius. This was going better than she had thought. Every one had been so caught up in the question about the mobile suits that they had completely forgotten to argue about their new assignments, either that, or they had just obeyed orders without question. Maybe she was just too used to dealing with rebellious teenagers who didn't want the responsibility she had forced on them.

Chief Murdoch scratched his head "We (he pointed at Kira) could reprogram the nano machines and change the thrusters to Destiny's wings of light. I have looked at it and I think we can manage it with some of the junk that Shin left here."

There had been a mix up in supplies when Archangel left PLANTs due to the rushed nature of things, meaning that they were carrying parts for suits that were aboard the Eternal. Murdoch blamed Shin as most of it was for his Gundam.

"Would save us paying him for salvage rights" muttered Mu.

That was a subject that she would rather not have to go into detail about right now. Archangel had a vault well stocked with gold for when they docked at a foreign port and needed cash for the crew to spend, but she was not happy about using it when she didn't understand the exchange rate of the local currency.

"And give us access to that machine" said Kira, demonstrating his superior Coordinator hearing.

"We should break it not fix it," muttered Athrun, but not quietly enough so that Murrue and most of the people present could not hear it.

"I don't know about you," Kira said with enough force behind his words to make Athrun visibly retreat, "but I would like to find out what happened to us, and why someone would have tried to destroy the world, or even who was behind it all."

He had a point. They didn't know too much about how Blue Cosmos, an organisation that had been obliterated during the second war, had re-emerged stronger than ever, but Murrue just knew she was going to regret this. Kira's mother Caridad had once said that Kira had tried to become an engineer because he was always taking things to bits and putting them back together unsuccessfully. Birdy had been no exception. Speaking of which, that robot had been conspicuously absent from its owner's shoulder. It was probably best not to bring that up.

"I will talk to him and see," she said, then turned to Daly and asked him "do you have any plans yet for defence?" She knew that getting the briefing back on topic was important, but it was the part she was most likely to get any protests about.

"Well, the gunnery sergeant and I have found several positions above the ridge that give us a good field of fire on the approaches. However, I am not willing to put any of my men above the Archangel in case the roof collapses," he said, moving over to the acetate projector and putting several marks on the rough map of the area. It looked like that time one of Reverend Malchio's kids had drawn on her walls. Too bad ZAFT had destroyed the evidence and her home. She was going to get the culprit to help her re-paint that room.

"I would also recommend we make barricades and check points at either end of the canyon to help with the defence and to regulate the flow of traffic in and out of the compound. However we should ask Ship's Security about getting some of their personnel to man the actual gates. As for heavy weapons, we have several GPMGs and some AT-rockets that we can position in the dugouts up top and along the barricades. Unfortunately we have no mortars or artillery support, so the sooner you can get aircraft in the air the better it will be for all of us. Right now we need to build these positions, so I will need every one except Commander Yamato, Admiral Zala and the Chief Representative to follow me after this is done so we can get started."

This was met by groans from the pilots who were only now realising that they were to do "grunt work".

"Very well, are you going to put them in the trenches until their suits are ready?" she asked, knowing the answer.

"Yes, but I will have to give them basic fire drills to keep up with the Marines," Daly said, getting snorts from several Marines who could not quite suppress the urge to laugh.

Like any Marine unit throughout the world, the Orb Marines were known for being ruthless and highly efficient fighters that saw other units as hopeless. Maybe this was how they appeared to think, to the outside observer. Truthfully, they only had an issue with the Airborne for some reason which she didn't get. Ledonir had never been able to quite explain it to her.

"Fine; are there any other issues we need to address?" asked Murrue

Hideyoshi put up his hand; he must have forgotten he was no longer at school.

"Yes Aircraftman Hideyoshi" said Murrue

"Well Sir, I mean Ma'am, do we know that Orb still exists? I mean it's been over 2000 years."

Crap was all Murrue could think. She had been trying to avoid any official answer to that question. They knew that there were several islands where Orb should be, and that was all they had.

"We have been told that it's still there" said Cagalli from behind him. "That's a point. We need to re-establish communication with home, if not we could be called a pirate ship or even AWAL and be targeted without political fallout."

"Right, can I leave you in charge of that, Cagalli?" said Murrue relieved that Cagalli had answered that. Cagalli was no longer a world leader, or even part of the military, as the rank of commander-in-chief was that of Orbs elected ruler and she was not that any more. Therefore anything she said to the crew as a superior was void and no one could come back at her.

"Yes, Captain," replied Cagalli.

"Sir," asked Hideyoshi again with his hand up in the air, "permission to speak freely?"

"Permission granted." Murrue had to force herself not to roll her eyes at what Hideyoshi was asking. Archangel was a close-knit ship as most of her crew hailed from places that had considered them traitors. However this also meant that you were free to say what you wanted within reason out of battle stations. Hell, she even encouraged her sailors to iron stuff out with their COs off duty, hence the hot tub and the 5-a-side lines on the hanger deck.

"I mean Sir is there any point in us going back to Orb? You know it's not like we have anything to go back to," he said.

Crap! Crap! And double crap! He had cottoned on, and if she didn't do something, the KIA was going to be four before the day was through, maybe more.

"What do you suggest? Doing an Athrun and going to ZAFT? Or have you not heard how that turned out the last time?" replied Cagalli. This got her a scowl from Athrun which she ignored.

"Sir it's not like the last Valentine's war."

"Hey kid, all I had back in Orb was a stupid pay check to my ex and my kid who I never met. Trust me kiddo there's worse places we could go," lied Tarou. He had family on the moon.

"Yeah kid" yelled one of the Marines from the back, "look at it this way, when you get to Orb you could pull any chick by saying 'hey good looking, I am a mobile suit pilot'"

"You couldn't pull a prostitute you ugly bastard," shot back a female Marine.

This got a laugh out of all present, except one pilot who was still glaring at Cagalli.

"Right," she started, to prevent the witty banter from carrying on too long, "we are not in a position to get mixed up in a war. The ship is heavily damaged and won't be back at full operational status for some time yet." She didn't mention that it would probably take Morgonrate months to get her back in shape if they were still around. "The crew are all overdue for some R and R, so unless someone has a better place to go, we are heading for Orb. Now are there any other questions?"

"Are we getting our pay from when we were in suspended animation?" asked Tsukyomi

"You don't get paid for sleeping on the job you twat" shot back Tarou.

Tarou had only been given a command with one year left in his service because he lacked any diplomatic skills leaving him training nuggets who needed the blunt truth about their performance.

She chose to ignore both that and a comment a Marine made about a bar he knew in New York that would have been a good place to go.

Murrue turned to Athrun and said "Admiral Zala I believe there is one order of business to take care of before we conclude this briefing."

Athrun composed him self and walked to the front before turning around "Aircraftman Kohaku Hideyoshi front and centre"

Kohaku rose and nervously stood in front of Athrun.

"Aircraftman Kohaku Hideyoshi after your performance during your last mission, you are here by promoted to Ensign in the Orb navy and are assigned to the 8th mobile suit division currently stationed onboard the Archangel." Said Athrun as he pulled a small box out from his pocket and put the new pips on Hideyoshi's collar. "Congratulations you are now under the command of Mu La flaga the CAG for Archangel."

This was met with a round of applause by the sailors as Kohaku took his new bars to sew on later.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Cagalli stayed behind after the meeting to talk to Athrun. As expected most of the pilots were dragged off to help the Marines with Mu muttering something about getting some paper work done and running off before someone could stop him. Kira sensing that he was intruding followed Mu leaving her and Athrun alone in the tent.

"I am sorry about that ZAFT remark but we need to keep the men focussed and give them something to work towards or there will be more sailors jumping off cliffs." said Cagalli

"Sure whatever."

'Sure whatever'. Something was not right here. Did Athrun want to go back to ZAFT? It wouldn't be as bad as last time now that Lacus was in charge. A hot shower and an electric razor were also two things that ZAFT had over them, Athrun really didn't suit blue stubble.

"If you want to go back to ZAFT, I will see what I can do when we get to Orb."

In return Athrun just grunted.

Cagalli's nerves, already taut from events snapped. Getting Athrun out of Orb and into ZAFT would cost her what little could have been salvaged of her family name and status. Knowing this, his only response was to grunt at her.

"Damn it Athrun, you should be grateful I am doing this for you. It's not like any one else would ever let a pilot and commander of your calibre just go off and live with your friends," said Cagalli standing too close to him to be polite, but she was not tolerating crap from Athrun. "If you are upset at PLANTs, fine I get it. I should have done more. But get this through your thick coordinator head, just about every one you know and have talked to during the last 5 years is still alive. Hell, Meyrin is probably still holding out that you may be –" she was cut off as Athrun violently stood up, pushed her to the side and left the tent, his fury almost tangible.

Cagalli could only stare at the tent exit. That was the closest Athrun had ever got to becoming physically violent in front of her. Sure they argued over insignificant things like her lack of etiquette or Athrun's pride many times, but they knew better than to let it get more than that. The only time she had seen him get violent was on that island and that had scared the shit out of her. She had gone for his gun knowing that if something happened, that gun would have been the only thing that could have saved her.

She wondered what she had said to make him storm off like that. She briefly replayed what she had just said in her head. He had been indifferent up until she had mentioned Meyrin and how she would be... SHIT! She had been on the Eternal right? She couldn't have been ... no there was just no way she could have been. Cagalli needed to find out more before she jumped to conclusions.

Rushing out the 'door' she looked around for Kira. If he was not sleeping or talking to Lacus then he would be in Freedom, trying to fix the damage the nano machines had done to his beloved suit. Lacus had needed to keep up her disguise so was sleeping on the couch of that Will person along with Lorain. Lucky for some! Her cot was held together by duck tape and her sidearm replaced a leg which had snapped when she had put it up. As for sleeping, Kira was like a dam log at night much to her annoyance, so that left the Strike Freedom. Putting on her normal suit helmet she ran into the cave to find her brother.

O0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Mu had a genuine reason to get out of 'grunt work' for the meantime anyway, he had to write up a report about the psychological status of his pilots and how he was organising them.

There was one little problem, out of all the computers on the Archangel there were only 4 laptops that were working, and until someone could get a second generator rigged up they were running on battery power. So if he wanted to type this report up then he would have to borrow a laptop and herein lay the problem. Murrue had decided to use them to listen in on any radio broadcasts hoping to discover where any military units were, relative to them. Unfortunately last time he had checked Kira's program, it was only able to receive the BBC world service which was limited in what useful intelligence one could get out of it, let alone four operators. However, that was four operators who had something other than this dirt hole to think about.

"Lockon! Allelujah!"

One operator seemed to have found a T.V channel with colour and very good CG. There were Gundams and lots of grunts shooting down debris that was falling off an orbital elevator. Kira should stop putting his favourite shows on his work laptop. Kuzzey doesn't need that kind of distraction.

Kuzzey had rejoined the Archangel after finishing his degree, although he didn't have much of an option. After the first war companies had started to do very meticulous background searches into their prospective employees to prevent those who had committed atrocities from finding work with them. This policy covered deserters as well and with Kuzzey leaving the Archangel before the end of the war, he had been black listed as a possible Blue Cosmos supporter by Orb companies and confirmed deserter by those in the Earth Alliance.

Sai and Miriallia had been spared as they had stayed on and were recognised as members of the three ship alliance. They were given the all clear whilst Kuzzy could not find work in the post-war massive rebuilding projects throughout the world and colonies. Cagalli had found out about this and had 'convinced' him to rejoin the Archangel for a tour of duty at the end of which he would have a very good reference from her and the Captain of a flag ship in the Orb Navy. Very cosy until the shooting started, then Kuzzey was Coms Officer on the most battle hardened ship in the fleet, and was therefore the shield to stop the shit after it had hit the fan, from hitting the home land.

"Hey kid didn't know you could get TV on this thing," Mu said loudly from behind Kuzzey whilst slapping a hand on his shoulder. This of course got the attention of all operators in the room, part one complete now for phase two, blab on to Kuzzey long enough for the others to just ignore him as he was 'being Mu', then take the laptop and quickly write up the report. Easy.

"What's all this commotion?" asked the missus foiling part two through five of the plan.

"Nothing Ma'am" said Kuzzey and Mu at the same time, both snapping to attention.

"Very well. As you were Buskirk, La Flaga ," she said before turning to Mu and asking "do the Marines need anything or can I send you back to work Captain La Flaga?"

Oh great she was still pissed about the hot springs incident. That woman, Teteth had said that there was water near the ship so he had followed her. There had indeed been water but when they had got there she had undressed and got in the hot spring. When he had declined her offer and was turning away Murrue had arrived and things had gone down hill from there. The worst part was no one believed that he was the victim of manipulation. It had been hard to convince her that he would not do that, but even now she was still suspicious. But he had to admit that Teteth did have a very nice body.

"I was hoping to quickly write up that report for you about the Squadron" he said hoping that if he told the truth she would let him go.

"Well if you don't have a pen that works I suggest using a pencil" she replied.

Mu rolled his eyes. Sailors in the space forces were always asked why they used $1000 pens that could write upside down when pencil worked. She had to know that with them coming straight from orbit there was little chance that anyone except maybe a Marine would have one.

A snigger from Miriallia told him yes indeed Murrue knew about that along with the bridge bunnies and he was now the butt end of that joke. Being caught red handed with his hand in the jar didn't help.

Deciding that it was time to make an exit before more than bad jokes were sent his way, he left.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

_BANG! BANG! BANG!_

There was something therapeutic about hitting PS armour with a sledgehammer, or at least Kira was finding it therapeutic, although if the rest of Archangel's crew knew what he was doing to a nuclear powered craft, then they would not need the ship to get back to Orb. It was perfectly safe despite what many would have thought, as Kira had found that other than the nano machine infestation of his suit, most of the systems were still functional like the P.S armour. One thing he had noticed was that the power gauge was now reading 80% rather than 100% meaning in 8000 years he would need to top up the tank. However not all the systems were showing so little damage; the radar shut itself down after being turned on for a test, the wings were jammed and he suspected that if he was to fire any of Strike Freedom's weapons they would explode. He knew Infinite Justice was in a similar situation except Murdoch was looking at ways of opening the port flight deck door and getting Infinite Justice out. The best way would be to hole the hydraulic return lines and just push it open. The only flaw in his plan was Athrun. He had not done any significant work on his mobile suit. Last time he had seen Athrun and Justice in the same room he had his head against the armour and looked to be crying. Athrun was taking it badly and for once he had no idea on how to help his oldest friend.

_BANG!_

He really hated not being able to help, it was so

_BANG_

frustrating

_BANG_

"Kira"

_BANG_

"Kira"

_BANG_

"KIRA"

_BANG_

"KIRA!!!!" yelled Cagalli into his ear making him stumble back and drop the sledgehammer.

"Ah, what did you do that for?" Kira asked clutching his abused ear.

"I have been standing here for five minutes and you never answered me." Said Cagalli, not impressed.

Kira blinked, had she really been there that long? "Sorry, I was caught up in my own thoughts."

"Was Meyrin onboard the Eternal during the last battle?"

"What! Yes I…" Kira replied, thrown off by her sudden change of topic. Of course she had been there. She had been assigned to CIC when the Eternal had been officially accepted into the ZAFT fleet. His memories involuntarily started to play back the events of when he had last seen her.

It had been about a month and a half before it hit the fan. Athrun and she had come around for dinner. He had been too busy to really socialise after that. Come to think of it, he had not seen her even at Condition One. Instead it had been the second shift operator who had launched him and Athrun. Had she really been there? And if not then where would she have…been. Oh no!

His eyes obviously betrayed his thoughts as Cagalli slumped up against Freedom, her helmet left to roll down the ships length.

"I had a conversation with Athrun and when I mentioned her name he stormed off. The only thing I could think of was she had either run off with someone else or she had been on PLANTs," said Cagalli.

The second option was a little too close to home but Kira didn't want to go down that path again. Slumping down next to her he considered what she had said. If true then Athrun's angst had started about the right time, but Athrun was normally quite vocal if he thought something was wrong, or would be to him about it.

"What should we do then?" asked Kira.

"I don't know," said Cagalli tugging at her hair.

"Has he talked to anyone about her?"

"Look Kira I only found out by deduction and I am his fucking best friend in Orb. He has not said anything to you and you have been his best friend since you were at school on the moon so he hasn't told anyone."

Yeah, Kira had guessed so but he needed to be sure, he had his own problems to deal with, so Athrun may have just found someone else to unload his burden on. He hadn't wanted to talk about Flay and still hadn't talked about her to Lacus, but he didn't need to, that was all in the past. He had got over it and she had been dead for over 2 millennia now. Actually the only person he had talked to about Flay was Sai but that had been because he had needed to talk, not Kira. However Kira had no problem in admitting it had helped, but it had helped Sai more than him.

"I will talk to him. Mind finishing this off for me?" said Kira getting up. He knew that if Athrun hadn't talked then forcing it out of him would be counter productive, but maybe if he just was around more he would open up.

"Sure, what do I do?" asked Cagalli looking baffled.

"Hit my mobile suit with the sledgehammer until all the nano machines have fallen out" he replied, seeing the shock on Cagalli's face slowly give way to glee. Maybe this would help her too.

**0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o**

Thinking about nothing is supposed to be what men are good at or at least that's what Murrue kept telling him and Mu when they watched some random channel on TV. That was one thing he could not remember. How did the Admiral of the 3rd fleet get stuck paying for both the sky and cable? Athrun then remembered and tried to cut off that train of thought, but he was too late.

Mey was lounging on the couch recovering from shuttle lag by watching her favourite soap from back home on the PLANTs, which could only be seen in Orb if one had the expensive TV package that no one else wanted.

Home huh? What did he have to go back to? She wasn't there, PLANTs wasn't there and as Hideyoshi had said, Orb for all intents and purposes may as well not be there.

'DAMN IT, ATHRUN. GET A HOLD OF YOUR SELF, YOU ARE THE COMMANDER AND EVERYONE HERE IS RELYING ON YOU TO GET THEM THROUGH THIS ALIVE,' Athrun mentally shouted at himself but it didn't help.

'THE MISSION! THINK ABOUT THE MISSION! GET YOUR HEAD IN THE GAME AND DO THE MISSION,' but that was just it, every time he had needed to tell himself that he had to do the mission or his duty, he knew it was wrong and he was just bullshitting himself. It had been his duty to kill Kira, an Earth Alliance Officer, who had killed Nical, one of the biggest screw-ups of his life.

It had been his duty to protect PLANTs by rejoining ZAFT as a FATH member, even when Kira had pointed out that something was very wrong. He lost the girl and had got a trip to Archangel's infirmary on life support for doing his duty, He still has the scars.

"Hey," said Kira.

"Hey," Athrun moaned out.

"Have you seen the doc about something for your head?" asked Kira. He probably thought that it was the make-believe headache that he had been talking about during the briefing farce.

"No, it should be fine, every one else has just been given aspirins and told to drink lots of water. I'll save some aspirin for someone who needs it and fill my canteen up when he comes back with the next load," Athrun replied sitting up on his cot and looking at Kira who was on his own.

Lorain had been stuck on water-boy duty for that battle he had got himself into. The kid was finding every excuse not to show his face to Athrun after the chewing-out he had received. Athrun wasn't losing any sleep over it.

The two fell into an uncomfortable silence. Athrun just wanted to get his head back together in peace, but it was obvious that Kira was not going to give him that. So he asked how Lacus was doing, hoping the small talk would dry up and Kira would find something else to do.

"Fine, she's still up at the house. Better there then here I suppose," replied Kira.

The house owned by Will had seen better days. The wing that she was staying in had a broken window and the bed was of such poor quality she would have been better to have borrowed a cot from us. Will had obviously obsessed over the fairytale too much to have bothered with home improvements. She would have been better off in the camp but Kira obviously didn't think so and Athrun was not about to burst that bubble.

"Has Lacus explained where the fairytale came from?" asked Athrun. He had been curious as to how Lacus's lost fairytale ship that could travel to the moon, could have such uncanny similarities to the Archangel.

Kira rubbed the back of his head. "Well, she had some free time when she was woken up the time before last and she, well, came looking for us. I think it caused quite a stir in ZAFT when she did it."

Athrun could imagine. The resources required for the trip must have been immense and she had no doubt done it all without telling anyone beforehand.

They fell into silence again.

"Do you need a hand with your Mobile Suit?" Kira asked eventually.

"I will start it later," Athrun said lying back down. He didn't want to look at his suit, the red VPS reminded him of her hair.

"Come on, Murdoch is going to be pissed if he gets the door open and Justice is not ready." Said Kira slapping Athrun on the shoulder.

Athrun really didn't want to do any work, curling up and dying would be much more preferable, but Kira was right he needed to start now. He could always pull rank on someone and get them to clean it, but only a handful of people on ship knew how to do anything with Justice; the price of using classified equipment.

"Don't you have your own suit to deal with?" Athrun asked sitting back up.

Kira smiled, "I tricked Cagalli into cleaning it for me." He looked pensive for a minute, "I should have left the wax with her, she could have done that as well."

"Cagalli." Athrun realised that she had been talking to him before he came here but he had not been paying attention to her. All he remembered was shoving her out of the way; his head was so cloudy that he couldn't remember what had set him off. That explained why Kira was here. She must have gone crying to him about it so he was playing peacemaker now. Better apologise quickly. Kira in big brother mode was something he had only seen once and it was something that he was not going to see again.

"Sorry I… may have… well, you know I," Athrun tried to say but Kira finished his sentence.

"You're not very good with people," he smiled. "Yeah we know, don't worry. Cagalli is ok; she knows you have been under a lot of stress of late, so has she." Kira said putting out his hand to help Athrun up.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Days later; captains tent/office

"But captain the tale said-"

Murru tuned out the rest of what Will was saying and glared at Athrun who was pretending to do paper work and ignoring both her and Will. It was late in the day now and they had finally got Athrun's mobile suit out of the ship, so he was now filling out the paper work that said Infinite Justice was fit for operations and its Ultracompact Hyper-Deuterion Nuclear Fission Reactor was not going Chernobyl on them. Unfortunately when they had been getting Justice out they had found that whatever had been used for hydraulic fluid had solidified. Now thanks to an over enthusiastic attempt to force the door, it had been torn off from the ship.

A hand slammed down on her desk "I demand that you take me to the moon!"

"We have no orders saying to go to the moon" replied Athrun finally acknowledging their presence.

"But the story said that-"

"This is a war ship and we are soldiers. That means that this ship is the property of Orbs government and we have to insure the safety of Orb, it's people and this vessel until relieved of that duty." At the end of his speech Athrun scrunched his face up like he had just swallowed something sour.

Will looked like he was going to continue protesting so Murrue stepped in "My ship is not currently fit for such a long trip and could take a considerable amount of time to make good for a trans-atmospheric flight." Murrue saw Will's face fall.

Feeling sorry for him she added "you know ZAFT will probably set up a shuttle service to the moon when all this mess gets cleaned up. It will take some time to get up and running, but there will be one eventually."

"I could never afford something like that" Will said, seeming to become more depressed.

It finally hit her why Will had been so persistent; he had nothing other than this fairy tale.

She owed him for rescuing the crew and her so she counted to three in her head and spoke as if she had been meaning to continue. "Well we have not been able to arrange your salvage rights, which for the most powerful warship in the Orb navy could end up being quite considerable. Of course that is not considering the rescue of the ships company and," what did he call them again? "Machine Dolls."

Athrun was slack jawed at what she just said, but Will could not see his face as his own lit up like a Lohengrin positron cannon, before he made his excuses and left.

"You manipulated him!" Athrun glowered.

"No, I figured it out" she said turning to face Athrun.

"Figured what out?"

"Why Will has been hunting the two of us down ever since we woke up and demanding that we take him with us." She ticked off fingers; "one, his home is in serious disrepair. Two, he farms just enough to feed himself and Teteth. Three, I don't need to tell you how loose Teteth is around other males." Athrun turned red from either anger or embarrassment at being the first one targeted, but she could not tell. "And four, we both know the disposition of forces in this area before we were shot down. There's nothing here that the militia would want. So he's broke, living in a house that is falling down around him, in a job that is going as well as his relationship. The only thing going for him is his dream of going to the moon and meeting his ancestor's lover."

"Maybe we should not tell him that Lacus is engaged to possibly the best mobile suit pilot ever to live and that the only thing he would be willing to kill for is Lacus." Said Mu as he strolled into the tent

"How very romantic!" replied Murrue in a mocking tone "While we are at it we may as well let Miriallia know that Dearka is still alive."

"Is there anything we can do for you Mu or is this a social call?" asked Athrun

"No, no just dropping this report off for Murdok," he said placing the document on her desk.

"It better not be in crayon like your last one" growled Athrun

"WHAT?" yelled Murru forgetting that she was in a tent now, and the whole base could hear her.

Athrun rummaged around the piles of official documents littering his side of the office until he produced one with a drawing of the Orb flag and **'Eyes Only' **written on it in yes, crayon.

Mu raised his hands in defence "it's only the cover page, the rest is in pen I swear."

She ripped off the seal and looked at it. The report about the pilots was indeed in pen, thankfully, court-martialling a senior officer let alone her lover, would hurt her and also the crew's morale.

"Where on Earth did you get children's crayons on the Archangel?"

"One of the guys from security had some shoved into his flack jacket by his daughter before we launched. Mera I think."

"Mary" Murru smiled at the memory of meeting the families of several of her crew.

"Yeah that's her, white hat and a little yappy puppy."

Athrun snorted. "No the Dogs name was Mary "

"Then what is her name?"

Athrun just shrugged "it doesn't matter any more, she is dead like the rest of them."

Murru wondered who Athrun had lost.

"If she was on the moon then chances are she's still there, if not she's part of the 'moon race' colonisation down on earth," said Mu.

Athrun just looked at Mu as if he had grown a second head. "Why would anyone believe that after nearly 3000 years their loved ones are still alive?"

"Lacus is still alive, why would others not be?" asked Murrue

Athrun looked like he was going to argue the point but Mu stepped in, "even if it's not true, the crew need something to believe in like how they believed that as long as Kira was flying in Archangel's defence, then they could face any odds."

"The crew have a right to know the truth."

"A truth that we don't know? As I told you before, don't give them a direct answer then you are not lying to them if its bad nor will you demoralise the crew by telling them how bad it could be if you are wrong."

Athrun scowled dangerously at her and looked on the verge of repeating his answer to her 'suggestion' and telling her how supporting her commanding officer was not the same as telling him how to do his dam job. Instead he thanked her for the suggestion before making his excuses and leaving.

"He still doesn't get it, does he?" asked Mu as he sat on the edge of her desk. The desk however protested enough that he relocated to Athrun's chair fearing for the structural integrity of her DIY.

"He gets it, but he has got it into his head that he can't shows weakness to his subordinates, and must do everything himself."

"So what happened to being subtle until he knew what he was doing?" prodded Mu.

"He ran out of time," she said, looking out of the tent at where Athrun had gone. She hoped he had not heard what she had said, the poor boy- no he was a man now- didn't need any more on his mind with the responsibility his rank brought with it.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Will was preparing for bed feeling content for the first time since he had laid eyes on Lacus's lost ship. His exultation at finding the ship after all these years despite what all those fools had said, had turned to concern when miss Heim had run off through a hatch in the side which he hadn't even known was there. It then turned to surprise when he had tried to open the door himself only for it to drop several ball-like objects with pins out on top of him. This was completely overshadowed by sheer terror when the first of the ship's crew had exited the hatch looking like an orange clad zombie. The man had stumbled out of the hatch only to cry out in terror himself when he saw the round objects littering the ground around his feet.

Then there had been that blonde who yelled at him for saying Sir (that was the correct address for an officer in the army, right?)

The Captain and Admiral who had removed the little blonde girl, had been more civil but had also shattered his dreams by informing him that even though he had found the ship he did not own it, they did. Sure, they had been very grateful for his assistance but they, like all those others, were not willing to help him in achieving his dream.

Now however, there was a way. He would not fly to the moon on that ship, instead he would go to the moon to meet Lacus on a ship paid for by her old wreck. The story never said that the ship he found would physically bring him to the moon. "Find Lacus's ship, a vessel capable of reaching the moon, then you shall travel to the moon and join her on the moon and live happily ever after."

A knock came from his door jarring him out of his thoughts.

"May I come in?" Will's ability to comprehend logical thoughts was affected proportionally by how much Teteth was wearing.

"I-in such a state…"

"No worries," she said moving over to the window and closing the curtains. "I wanted to talk to you about the space ship."

He had gained control of his expression by the time she turned round, keeping a look of disinterest on his face, whilst surreptitiously watching her out of the corner of his eye.

"We are not getting anywhere with that Captain or the Admiral," she said sitting down next to him on the bed.

Will frowned. In his excitement he had forgotten to tell her about the talk he had had with the Captain. "The Captain has made us a deal." Teteth looked surprised at that, but he continued. "She said that she would pay for us to get to the moon on a ZAFT shuttle after the war is over."

Teteth raised both eyebrows. "When? How long will this war go on? The last one lasted 30 years."

She was right as always and the Captain had played him for a fool. He should have realised that she had been stalling, after all, he was not just an archaeologist but a historian as well. He knew that wars were seldom over in a short time, as casualties mounted, more and more new recruits would throw themselves at the enemy only for their loved ones to take up arms in there memory when they died. This state of affairs would only end when one side was so battered that even vengeance could not blind them to the realities of their situation and they capitulated. So like all those wars before, this one would end the same way. History repeats itself.

Teteth frowned, "the moon race will have space craft flying to the moon even now."

Will also frown "Military ones yes, but they would never let us on board, only military people."

"Unless we have something they want" Tateth said

"But we don't!"

"I overheard the ship's crew during a briefing. They are worried that the Lacus Counter will attack them." She said

"Why? They said that they are neutral in the conflict." He had never heard of Orb before he had found that ship.

She shrugged "They have lied to us about a lot of things. They could have lied about that after all they are an earth nation and you have heard the radio has been saying?"

He had, "the people of earth will throw out the invaders from the moon, there is no middle ground just us and them." The man on the radio he had thought it just mindless propaganda after all al the real news sources had been shut down. One of his history teachers had said that the first casualty in war was the truth now he had a living example, or he had thought.

"They are going to attack the moon race?" Will was incredulous even thought he had seen the evidence before him.

"And the moon race would be willing to pay any price to know that attack is coming." She said with a knowing look in her eyes

Will's eyes widened in realisation, any price was less than the Moon Race taking them to the moon, but then his eyes darkened as he caught onto something he should have worked out long ago.

"Who are you really?" This sort of deduction would have been inconceivable for a simple farm woman.

Teteth smiled and leaned in close. "Someone who wants to help you realise your dreams, get a good night's sleep, we should leave at sunrise," she said, before getting up and walking out of the door, much to Will's disappointment.

All Will could think at that moment in time was 'damn, that was a nice view'

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The ground shook as if Tartarus had released it's inmates. Above the tree line dots of lights appeared bobbing up and down in time with the ground shaking, each one the eye of a monster. Their purpose to fight the Titans of those who saw themselves as above the mere mortals of earth.

Below these giant Cyclops ran a much smaller ball-shaped machine. In day light it would have looked ridiculous with its arms swinging back and forth like red riding hood off to see grandma, or more accurately, like the wolf disguised as red riding hood with its claws showing. In fact this was a war machine like its bigger companions, and by dawn the moon's Titans would feel their wrath.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

**A/N**

That's chapter 2 finally done no thanks to university working me to death.

Let me clear one thing up about OC's I hate them as I see so many vainly disguised Mary Stus and self inserts that now if I see an OC in a fic I run like hell. I however needed grunts to man the line and run the ship on a day to day basis, so here are the grunts. Don't worry if you are like me and hate OC's. They won't see much screen time, there are plenty of more important people in the two shows for that.

New example of bad subs is at the beginning of the talk between Will and Teteth. It goes like this.

Will "I-in such a status"

Teteth "no hurry"

Many thanks to my betas for helping me with spelling/grammar


End file.
